Remember what was happening across the world ten years ago? People were losing their minds, wondering what was going to come from the ominous Y2K bug. However, while all the old farts were shaking in their boots waiting for the clocks to strike midnight, something 100x cooler was happening – in music! Looking back at all the fantastic hip-hop that has come out in this past decade, I was struck by how many of my favorite albums were released in 2000.

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eLZhi decided to share some brief stories behind each of the tracks from his “Leftovers Unmixedtape”. In this part (1 of 3) eLZhi talks about his songs “The Great,” “Deep,” “Red, Black and Green” and “Dream.” Props to M.O.S.

The Great
I linked up with Oh No, and recorded “The Great” a long time ago. It’s like five or six years old. Oh No sent me a beat CD, and that was one of the beats I chose. I recorded it to the track, I let him check it out, and he thought it was dope. We were planning to work on an entire album, but our schedules didn’t allow for it at the time. Originally “The Great” was leaked on a fan made mix around 2006.  I know it didn’t really get out to the people how I wanted it to, so I brought it back here, for the “Leftovers”.

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I’m really anticipating the new Clipse album dropping next month. After that we should have De La Soul, Reflection Eternal and The Roots all dropping in early 2010. Maybe its just me, but it seems like we have less groups in hip-hop right now that can have actual success in the underground and mainstream arena. This is a glaring trend in comparison to the last two decades. When I think of great groups like The Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest, the focus was less on who was the best emcee and more about how great the music was. Read the rest of this entry »

Historically hip-hop has always brought attention to the social injustice. Whether it was Public Enemy with “911 Is A Joke” pointing out the disparity between emergency assistance in the inner city compared to white neighborhoods to Mos Def’s posse cut “One Four Love Pt. 1″ in response to police brutality in NYC in the wake of them killing unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo. The message has not been lost and hip-hop has covered it. Read the rest of this entry »

A good debut album for any new artist is literally one the most daunting things to create. So why is it in hip-hop when an artist puts out a great debut album we expect the same results with every time they release new music? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not sure if this is specific to hip-hop, but I’m beginning to really believe that certain people would rather critique music than just listen to it. They’re definitely more inclined to analyzing the music than appreciating it at face value or potentially what the said artist intended. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m lucky to live in one of the best cities in the world. However, the hip-hop scene in Toronto while not lacking in talent is still struggling in some ways. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past six years Nicolay and Phonte have definitely put their stamp on black alternative music. I first heard Nicolay back in 2002 on Little Brother’s – ‘Whatever You Say’ (12″) on a track called “Light It Up”. Read the rest of this entry »

In the process of absorbing the latest Mos Def LP The Ecstatic I couldn’t help but revisit his previous New Danger album from 2004. I have to ask, why didn’t people like New Danger again? It’s fantastic in my opinion. Mos Def was funky, experimental and still conscious. Besides Minnesota, 88-Keys & Kanye West, he was also working with a rock collective called Black Jack Johnson. The group was comprised of himself, Dr. Know, Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish (both from Living Colour). The overall sound was funky, edgy and still hip-hop at its core. Read the rest of this entry »

What it is folks?  I’m back again with more tidbits of info for those artist that chose to listen lol.  The mass media and consumption is nothing new.  The only difference now is that the Internet put it into overdrive.  Every 5 seconds there’s a new link to an album for free download or a song or a ruff version of a song or whatever.  As we should be, artists are taking advantage of the World Wide Web and its inhabitants.  This has produced a lot of music, a lot of misses, but we’re going to talk about the ones that hit.

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